I am working with NT customer support re. the account performance report, so nothing to post from there. By way of re-cap, lots of trades. Lots of stops. -$724 by lunch, and the day continued on that streak. I don't think I had more than +$20 to +$30 trades this afternoon. Brutal, brutal, brutal.
Maybe the re-cap will give some indication of what went wrong. I know I was stressed after the morning, collected by the afternoon session, and ready to pull my hair out - but still trading by end of day.
New low on ANR. The stop was set above the high. Went down, re-traced and turned green, then proceeded to go on up. Another new low later in the day. After it touched three candles back, broke then doji-ed green, then a relatively nice red candle. I bought as it broke, and it proceeded to completely retrace and turn green. The stop was set just above the high and in line with the support offered by 2 out of the 3 previous candles. It went higher, then turned back around and broke a new low again. Anything to do here except not trade? (-$156.64)
A new high on ARD. Stop was set on previous candle high. Stopped out and reversed with the stop set on the new high. Re-traced and broke new ground... and stopped out. Shorted on the hovering high and the doji with the stop set on the new high. Stopped. Went long as it touched the new high with stop set on support from three previous candles. Stopped out and reversed with stop in the same place. ran down a bit, then stopped out on the long wick (-$235.64):
BTU seemed determined to go down. Shorted with the stop on the previous low, stopped out. A stop on the previous candle open would have been good here. Shorted after the long Red and breaking low, the stop was previous low. Discretionary exit after the doji (+$19.30):
BYI looked like it wanted to go up. It was staying put against the Q's and SPY's drop. So I went long as it touched again, with plenty of room for the stop (the 10:40 high). Immediately it drops, then drops again and hits the stop. In this case a tighter stop would have been beneficial. Maybe another clue: it was creeping past the previous high, I think the lack of greed should have been a sign (-$102.86):
CAM. It looked to me like CAM was taking a breather on the way down. I shorted as it broke the support of the prior three candles with the stop set at the tops of the candles. Stopped out on the next candle over. I reversed with the stop on the previous support and got stopped again. I shorted as it broke a third time and broke even. I probably should not have traded this one at all, I was assuming end of day movement (-$142.14):
Nice trend on CNX, I thought with it breaking new lows and a slight bounce already, it was a good time to get in. Nothing much happened - and I got stopped as it touched the previous low (-$6.28):
Shorted DNDN as it broke support with a stop set on the support. Fizzle and stop. Then a new high and I scalped with a reverse set on the current high for the day. Stopped. THen a short as it broke support Discretionary exit as it turned green, then re-entered. Discretionary as it passed the previous open (and losing a lot of profit - normally not a big deal, but today I needed it - but still the largest gain of the day at +$242).Then I tried to find something... but nothing to be had. No trends, no momo. You could say that I am persistent (+$107.18):
New low on EDZ after a pause. I panicked and closed for a small profit, re-entered and another discretionary for a small profit. Shorted again later as it broke. Another discretionary exit as it re-traced. Went long with the greens and got stopped out as it passed the previous close. Shorted again with another discretionary exit as it looked like it was stalling. This would have gotten stopped out on the first entry (previous low), and there were three wicks breaching the stop by two ticks. The next entry would not have been stopped, but almost (+$32.38):
New high on FAS, with the stop placed just below the previous high. The stop was breached. Shorted with the stop on the new high, and stopped again for a 30 tick bump. I could have reversed once more, but - I am almost sure I wouldn't have been out on the next candle, probably on the low the way the day was going (-$84.54):
New low on FXP. Closed as the candle turned green (+$47.52):
Trending down on HPQ with a new low. Shorted with a stop on the previous close and it got stopped. Re-entered as it broke again, missed the big profit and exited as it was trying to make up its mind. Holding on to it a little long may have helped, but hard to tell with the long candles (-$66.88):
MED on a new high, stop set on the high. Up and drop. A little bit of momo kicked in on the next break (+$7.72):
It looked like MEE wanted to head down, so I shorted with a stop on the previous close. It did head down. Then back up and stopped. A little more room on the stop here would have worked. But - not a lot of resistance really (-$48):
New high on NAV. Discretionary exit because I was actually showing a profit. Another new high and another discretionary as it looked to be lacking. I then tried to short with a stop on the latest high as it turned red. Stopped out (-$3.98):
Long on the new SKX high, with a stop set one tick below the previous high - and I got stopped out. Would have been good for part of a buck (-$47.95):
SNDK's new high and a long with the stop at the previous candle close. Stopped. Tried to short the next new high with the stop at the high. Stopped. Same story on the next new high and I tried to reverse with another stop breached (-$152.55):
SRS came up on the TDA alert (long red bar) and I thought I would try to go along with the flow. Nope (-$75.07):
Long on STI's new high. Discretionary exit (+$17.02):
Short on WRC's breaking resistance with stop at resistance. Stopped. Shorted as it came down to the low. Stop was moved down as it meandered. Tried to go long after the doji and green , and stopped out (-$267.97):
Well. Nibbled to death. And no big winners today.
Looking at the charts, I don't think I did anything wrong after an entry. Kept things tight and only got stopped out a handful of times where I would have gained if the stop had been more generous (ARD, BTU, BYI, FAS, MED, MEE, SNDK). But it was choppy and it is difficult to know how I would have played them exit wise.
Hmm...
I am thinking more judicious entry. There were some stocks that had good, even excellent runs today - but nothing I saw had fast momo or fear/greed runs. Several morning trend on new highs/lows: AKAM, CAM, AIG, VECCO, SKX to name a few. But several of these had plenty of long candles - in both directions, most likely blowing out my stops. I was only in on SKX (and got stopped). Luck of the draw?
I need a plan for tomorrow. I can't have another day like this. Not sure how to pick up on a day like this early on. And, I need to re-consider what makes a good entry.
Any - and all - advice appreciated =)
take what i say lightly because i am yet to be profitable but slow down the trading. too many stocks. less is more. i was actually thinking you were going to kill it today.
ReplyDeletei can compare the DNDN trade since i traded it as well. where you shorted, i thought that was just the market makers gunning out the stops before they take it higher. i have gotten stopped out like that time and time again. you get long the consolidation area, put your stop below consolidation, and then it hovers for an hour or so, then drops down, only to go higher.
what i have been working on is patience. waiting for my price. i look at these charts and i see everytime i shorted lows, or bought highs, majority of the time it retraced back to the breakout, to the 20ema, or some sort of breathing area. it all comes in cycles. that is my problem now on the exit side. everytime is retraces i freak, and exit. but i have to remember just like on the entry, it is going to ebb and flow.
have you checked out trader x blog. it is about buying gappers, but he has thousands of charts you can study. his A+ set up is, gap up, break to highs, retrace back to highs, and then long.
smaller share size also. don't blow up your account. do it like me, death by a stabbing needle, ha!
how do your charts show the entry? the arrow means you traded that bar, and the triangle shows the price level?
head up brother. everyone has these rough days. the good thing is, it is over many trades so you are not just losing on one monster trade. every trade is experience.
Thanks for the input Joshua. Maybe it is time to consider smaller positions. Going to go back over the charts again tonight. I don't think I am doing anything different than I have been on the good days. I need to find a way to either recognize these types of conditions and stay away, or how to make money on days like today and yesterday.
ReplyDeleteYes on the trade depiction - arrow is entry and triangle is price.
Patience? What's that? Tell me now! =)
what about t3live? did you sign up for a free trial? it may help you. i don't usually take any trades they say, but you can definitely learn alot there. they have a whole video section filled with old seminars they had, talking about retracements.
ReplyDeleteI would repeat some of what Joshua said, and again, take whatever advice I give as just that, simple advice (perhaps not so good! Who knows!). One thing I know that can get lost in technical analysis is context. Actually, I would say context is what separates great from mediocre traders. On one day, you will enter in a consolidation, and it will rocket in your direction with no effort at all. On the very next day, you can do the same trade and have vastly different results.
ReplyDeleteI did not see you mention volume much at all, but it really gives you an indication of what you should be doing. So imagine a spectrum with high volume on one side, and low volume on the other. When volume is higher, you want to do the obvious, text book plays. This would be buying consolidations, and all the other stuff that guru's hype all the time as the "money making" plays. The higher the volume, the less hard you should work.
The lower the volume, the more often you should enter on stop runs, fading breakouts, and generally doing what would frustrate newbies the most. If you want to be long something, it is consolidating, and you know that both premarket volume, and day volume is low, it is worth waiting for an obvious signal in the OPPOSITE direction before entering. The best trades on low volume days look like the worst trades on high volume days.
Every newbie in the world knows how to buy that breakout, but they do not know how to frame that breakout in the right context, and that can be your edge over them. Of course to know volume levels, you have to know the stock you trade, which may mean less switching around :). Take it for what its worth.
Thanks for the insight Tarigal. Definitely food for thought.
ReplyDeleteMy advice: if you are losing on a consistent basis, stop or get to very small size until you can string together some wins; if you are losing consistency then all you really need to do is flip your strategy; and finally, all strategies go through periods of underperformance. Perhaps you are in one of those now, but you need to know when those periods are. Van Tharp has a bunch of good stuff on figuring that out
ReplyDeletedaytrading fool,
ReplyDeletetarigal and i are going to get a room going on skype tomorrow. my user name is stiks47 and tarigal is tarigal. come join us.
joshua
Thanks for the invite! I will see if I can get it figured out. I haven't used skype much.
ReplyDeleteI prefer to take the 'OEM or Space radio with headphones and concentration method' for trading, but I would like to meet you guys.
oh yeah, i agree. i love the oem radio. i get in the groove when that is on.
ReplyDeletei was just thinking to blow off steam at lunch. sometimes its good to get the frustrations off your chest so you can go back fresh for the afternoon.